It was the first time he’d touched her.
During the marriage mass, they’d simply stood there and listened, hands at their sides. They hadn’t even looked at one another, their attention on the priest as he intoned the blessing. Even afterward, they had been congratulated by other people. They hadn’t even congratulated each other. Gar had been surrounded by his father and brother, while Mattie had been embraced by her mother. Julia didn’t even let her go, notuntil they’d reached the dais in the great hall where the hastily arranged wedding feast was spread out. Mattie sat down, there was a toast to their good marriage, and then Gar was pulled away by his father and brother and even Maksim, who seemed particularly overjoyed by the union. That had left Mattie sitting with Agnes and her mother whilst men drank and sang, and gaiety went on around her.
But something good had come out of it.
It gave her a chance to observe her new husband.
Gar loved to laugh. He laughed with his brother, his father, with Maksim. He drank, he laughed. He had big, straight teeth and a beautiful smile, one that made her heart leap strangely. He was big and handsome and seemingly bright, everything a maiden should want in a husband, but there was another side to him that she saw, too.
He was, in a word, sloppy.
He drank wine, it spilled down his chin, and he wiped it away with a hand. Then he wiped that hand on the breeches she’d made for him. He was still wearing them and the pale linen was quickly becoming dirty. At one point, he was challenged by one of the soldiers to an arm-wrestling competition, which he won with hardly any effort. But in the process of winning, he’d spilled the soldier’s trencher onto his lap and onto the floor, and other than brush it away, he did nothing to actually clean it. He seemed to have no sense of cleanliness or manners, so by the time Mattie’s mother was demanding he dance, Gar was filthy with stain. It was somewhat mortifying. When he winked at her, she almost forgot about it, but not quite. She was expected to stand with him. Dancewith him. Oh, how she wanted to dance with her husband, but not the little piglet standing beside her.
Mattie was quite torn.
“Would this be a good time to confess that I do not know how to dance?”
Gar was whispering in her ear, distracting her from her thoughts. He smelled like wine. She looked at him, into those bright green eyes, and she could feel herself surrendering.
“Of course you can dance,” she said. “Everyone learns to dance when they foster.”
He shook his head. “Not me,” he said. “I never had the ability. Everyone would laugh at me when I tried, so I simply refused to learn.”
She grinned. “I will teach you, have no fear,” she said. “Please do try. It is our wedding feast, after all.”
He nodded, conceding the point. “For you, I will,” he said. “But if anyone else asks me, they will not like my reaction.”
“Gar!”
It was Julia. She was barking at him like a battle commander. Before Gar could stop himself, he shouted his response.
“Aye, empress?”
His booming voice had the entire hall laughing. Even Julia fought off a grin at his cheeky answer.
“Empress, is it?” she said. “Well and good that you have acknowledged that.”
“I have, empress.”
He seemed so serious about it and his reaction had Julia laughing. He was naughty, and sassy, but so adorable she could hardly become angry with him.
“I see,” she said, looking at him appraisingly. “But if I am the empress, what, pray tell, is my daughter?”
Gar looked at Mattie, who was smiling up at him and he smiled in return.
“The queen,” he said softly. “She is the Queen of All.”
The entire hall applauded his answer, cheering the new husband’s smart and submissive response when it came to two women who would be important in his life. One more than the other, of course, and the moment wasn’t lost on Mattie. Sheflushed madly because it was a sweet thing to say and everyone knew it.
Especially her.
As the cheering died down, Julia clapped her hands quickly, businesslike, and the music began again. Since there were only three noblewomen in the hall—Mattie, Agnes, and Julia—there weren’t any women for the soldiers to dance with. That was also because Julia wouldn’t let the camp followers, the women who tended to warm the beds of the soldiers and cook for them, into the great hall. As she’d once told Reece, she’d rather have the dogs in her hall than the cats. Therefore, when the lines began to form for the traditionalbransle, it was all men and two women because Julia recused herself.
The lines began to move.
Very quickly, Mattie began to see that Gar hadn’t been exaggerating. He had no idea where to put his feet. Softly, she began to coach him.
“This way,” she murmured. “Watch my feet. That’s right. The left over the right. When we reverse, it will be the right over the left.”
